The Cowboy Steals a Lady Read online

  He said a rude word under his breath.

  A tapping on the window behind his head made him jump. He sighed. They had all the time in the world for discussion now.

  He got out and went around to the back. "What?"

  "I need a bathroom."

  He gave her a grim smile and extended a hand into the whiteness. "Be my guest."

  Her cheeks flushed. "You're saying we're stuck."

  Shane scowled. "It's only temporary."

  "Like my abduction?"

  He hunched his shoulders against a particularly sharp gust of wind. Not, he assured himself, against the accusing look in those bright hazel eyes of hers.

  "Right," he said gruffly. He wasn't going to feel guilty, damn it. She ought to be thanking him. He was saving her from herself, wasn't he? It wasn't his fault it was snowing so damn hard.

  "Come on," he said. "We can hike it. There's a bathroom in the cabin."

  She jumped down, stood knee-deep in the snow next to him and looked around. "What cabin?"

  "Over there. Just up the road," he said vaguely.

  She looked into the swirling snowfall. "What road?"

  Shane gritted his teeth. "Come on. I'll show you." He tucked his good hand around her arm and led the way.

  "Is there a heater in this cabin?"

  "You bet."

  It wasn't on, of course. Neither, Shane realized when they finally stumbled in, was the water. So the plumbing wasn't working.

  He could take care of both. But in the meantime…

  "There's an old outhouse round back."

  "An outhouse?" Her eyes widened.

  He shrugged irritably. "I'll get the system going. In the meantime, you'll have to use what we have. Sorry it's not four-star accommodations. I didn't come up here and get things ready beforehand. It's not like I planned this, you know!"

  Her wide eyes took on a look that was a disconcerting combination of guilelessness and mockery. "I'd never have guessed."

  * * *

  He couldn't light a match left-handed. He tried, God knew.

  He flipped and fumbled and scraped and scratched. He had a hard enough time tearing them off the stupid packet. Then he couldn't get the right angle to strike them. They bent, they crumpled. Once, finally, one flickered, then promptly died as the wind gusted through the door when Milly came back from the outhouse.

  "Damn it!" He had matches all over the floor.

  She stared—first at him, crouched on the floor by the fireplace, then at the matches, then at his white casted, padded hand. "What happened?"

  He knew she wasn't asking about the matches. "It's a long story."

  She looked pointedly out a window at the blizzard raging beyond the glass as she shook off a blanket of snow. "I think we're going to have a while. So, I repeat, what happened?"

  "I tore off my thumb."

  She gaped at him. "On purpose?"

  "Of course not! I was helping this girl unload, and a trailer hitch broke, and the horse spooked, and my thumb got caught and—" He shrugged. It wasn't the sort of injury that got a guy a lot of sympathy.

  The light dawned. "You rodeo with Cash." Then, looking at his cast again, she said, "That's grisly."

  "Uh-huh. But I picked it up. They sewed it back on." He turned back and fumbled with another match.

  "You picked it up? Your thumb?"

  What the hell else was he supposed to do? "Why not?"

  She shuddered slightly, then held out her hand. "Give me those." She hunkered down next to him, took the matchbook out of his hand and deftly tore off a match. "Is this what we're lighting?" She nodded toward the wood and crumpled paper he'd laid in the grate.

  "I thought it would warm the place up quick." He grimaced at that bit of folly. "Then I was going to go out and work on the fuel tank."

  She struck the match against the packet and cupped it in her palms, carrying it to the grate and touching it to the paper. It flickered and caught, spreading to the wood shavings that, thankfully, someone else had provided before they left. It moved to the kindling, settling, steadying.

  The tiny pocket of warmth began to spread, too. Milly sat back on her heels and held her hands out to the fire, then breathed deeply, turned to Shane and smiled. "We did it."

  "Yeah."

  But he was getting warm, anyway, and it didn't have anything to do with the fire. Inside Shane, far from diffusing, the heat began to concentrate. All because of her smile.

  He could see why Cash was head over heels for her. She had a way of looking at you that made you want to bust out grinning. It made a guy's chest expand. It made the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And other things, too.

  Cash, he reminded himself. She belonged to Cash. He stood up abruptly. "Thanks."

  "My pleasure," she said, apparently oblivious to his purely masculine reaction. She tossed her hair back and kept right on smiling as she looked up at him.

  He wished she wouldn't. Toss her hair. Smile. Look at him. All of the above.

  He backed away quickly, stumbling over his own boots in his haste to get out the door. "I'll just go see about that tank."

  "If it takes a match, call me," she called.

  Not on your life, sweetheart.

  * * *

  He didn't need a match outside.

  Not to light the tank. Not to stay warm. Thanks to his body's persistent reaction to Milly, he was warm enough!

  He got the fuel tank's supply valve turned on with no trouble. But he stayed out, anyway, giving himself a pep talk, reminding himself that he didn't poach on other guys' girls.

  No way. No time. No how.

  Only when he had the situation under control, when he figured he could walk back in and treat her with the indifference required, when he was confident he could ignore her, did he go back in.

  He crouched down to look at the heater and discovered he needed another match to light the pilot. "Damn it!"

  "Here." He jumped at the sound of her voice, and turned to see her stooping down behind him, a match already lit. "I'll do it."

  She was close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek. His body forgot his pep talk about indifference. Shane steeled himself against its demands and stabbed the button down.

  Milly lit the pilot light, but didn't move away. She stayed right where she was. Her hair brushed his shoulder. Her knee touched his. He wondered if she could hear the hammering of his heart.

  When he was sure there was enough voltage generated to hold the electromagnet down, Shane eased the button up. The pilot light stayed lit.

  Her face lit up and she grinned. "Success!" Distress, to Shane's way of thinking. He leaped up and practically dashed across to set the thermostat, shoving it up as high as it would go—not that he personally needed any heat at all!

  "Shall we do the water heater while we're at it?" She looked at him expectantly.

  "Sure," he managed. "Why not?"

  He wanted to say, "Stop breathing down my neck!" He wanted to say, "Go away. I can do it myself." But he couldn't, and he knew it.

  So they repeated their duet.

  When that pilot light caught, too, she gave him another one of her smiles. Shane was prepared this time, steeling himself.

  It helped. But not much.

  He thought it would be better when she crossed the room and shed her parka. But it wasn't. Shane stared as she went to stand by the fireplace, arching her back and tipping her head back exposing her neck. Her eyes shut. Her hair tangled in loose waves down her back, drops of snow melting and making the fire spatter when they fell into it. Her breasts peaked against the soft dark green wool of her sweater, simply begging to be touched, to be caressed, to be nibbled and nuzzled.

  By Cash.

  "I gotta go," Shane blurted.

  Her eyes snapped open. "Go?"

  "Not for good," he said quickly. "Back to the truck. To … get my gear." Get my bearings.

  "Do you want me to come, too?"

  "No! I mean, no. Yo
u stay here. Keep warm." He just now noticed she was wearing only a pair of flats, not boots. "Why didn't you say?" he demanded, nodding at them. "I'd have carried you. You … weren't exactly dressed for, um…"

  "Commandeering?" she suggested with a smile and an arched brow.

  He felt like a fool. "It's for your own good," he muttered.

  "Yes," she said, "it is."

  He blinked. "You think so?"

  "Absolutely."

  He permitted himself a faint grin and a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm glad you came to your senses about that. An' I'll take you back like I promised. Just as soon as the wedding would be over."

  "You think we'll be able to get out of here by then?"

  Their gazes met. It was almost magnetic, this force he felt arcing between them. He had to start backing away in order not to cross the room just to be near her.

  "I'll do my damnedest," he said. And he'd never meant anything the way he meant that.

  * * *

  Get a grip, he told himself. You've seen a pretty girl before. You don't have to drool over this one.

  He wouldn't.

  He would get his sleeping bag and stay the hell out of her way. Still, as he trudged back to where he'd left the truck, he wondered at a woman capable of inspiring such an intense reaction from so many men.

  Cash, who could take his pick of a thousand buckle bunnies, only wanted this one. Mike Dutton, too, obviously wanted her badly enough to marry her.

  And Shane—well, he hadn't had that intense a reaction to a girl since he was a sophomore in high school!

  He wasn't a sophomore any longer, he reminded himself sharply. And thank God for that.

  He was thirty-two years old. He'd seen New York and San Francisco and a thousand places in between. In thirteen years, he'd put more miles on his body than he wanted to count. He was all grown up, mature. He hadn't done anything downright foolish in years—well, months at least.

  And he wasn't going to do anything dumb now.

  It might have been maybe a little … er, impetuous … commandeering Cash's girlfriend this way, but he'd done it with the best of motives.

  He was going to live up to those sterling motives now, he vowed as he dragged his sleeping bag out of the back of his truck and tucked his duffel bag under his arm.

  He was going to go back to the cabin and be polite and proper and distant—every inch the gentleman his mother had often despaired he'd ever be.

  But, he thought as he opened the door and felt an instant reaction to the sight of her sitting by the fire, her long dark hair billowing out, her face flushed, her eyes and mouth smiling, it sure as hell wasn't going to be easy.

  Resolutely he stripped off his glove, then kicked the snow off his boots and stuck out his hand. "I reckon we haven't been formally introduced. And since Cash isn't here to do the honors—" he managed a rueful grin "—I'll have to do 'em for him. I'm Shane Nichols."

  She rose and came across the room, smiling as she took his hand. "Poppy Hamilton."

  "Pleased to—" He stopped, mid-shake, and frowned. "Poppy? But … Cash said your name was Milly."

  "Not … exactly." She looked apologetic. "I've been trying to figure out a polite way to tell you…"

  "Tell me what?"

  She shrugged helplessly. "You kidnapped the wrong girl."

  * * *

  Three

  « ^ »

  The cumulative effects of concussion could do that to you.

  Over the years you lost brain function, the ability to put two and two together, to comprehend the meanings of simple words. Shane had heard that. But he hadn't believed it until now.

  "What did you say?"

  It had to be all those concussions. It couldn't have been— "What do you mean, the wrong girl?"

  "I'm not Milly."

  "Of course you're Milly!" What the hell kind of game was she playing? Did she think he was going to take her back and trade her in on someone else if she denied her identity?

  "But I'm not. For some reason you thought I was Milly." She looked at him hopefully. "You were trying to kidnap Milly," she clarified, when he just stared at her.

  "I know who I was trying to kidnap!" he shouted at her. "And damn it, I told you, I wasn't kidnapping anyone!"

  "Excuse me. Commandeering."

  Shane nodded, justified.

  But then she shook her head and gave him a pitying look. "So, consider me commandeered. But I can't change who I am. And I'm Poppy. Not Milly."

  He glared at her, still stunned, and said the only thing he could think of. "Prove it."

  She shrugged, then sighed. She crossed the room and got her parka and fished in the pocket, pulling out a wallet. She opened the wallet, crossed the room and handed it to him. "My license."

  It was her, all right. Same sparkly eyes, same drop-dead gorgeous smile, same glorious hair. Who'd have thought a driver's license photo could look so damn good?

  Then he looked at her name.

  It didn't say Milly.

  But it didn't say Poppy, either, he noted with considerable satisfaction. "This says Georgia," he pointed out. "Georgia Winthrop Hamilton."

  She wrinkled her nose. "My real name. I'm named after my father."

  He stared at her.

  "As close as my mother would allow him," she explained. "I was their only child. The only one they were ever going to have, and they knew it. My father probably would have named me George if he'd thought he dared," she added a little wryly. "But my mother insisted on Georgia. And she called me Poppy."

  "How do I know she didn't call you Milly?"

  "Because there would be no reason to," she said, as if it were perfectly logical.

  It wasn't to Shane. He didn't follow. There seemed to be a lot he wasn't following.

  "My mother said that when I was a baby and I cried, my face got as red as Georgia O'Keefe's poppies. Ergo … my name." She gave a helpless shrug and a smile. "My mother had a certain sense of humor."

  Apparently.

  Shane thought a certain sense of humor would be a good thing right now. He tried to find his.

  This girl wasn't Milly?

  He tried thinking back over the evening with Cash at The Barrel. Cash was the one who'd been drinking; Shane hadn't. Now, if he'd been the one drinking he could see that maybe he'd made a mistake. But he hadn't touched a drop. He could still taste the ginger ale now, if he thought about it hard enough.

  He shook his head. "But he said…" He was trying to remember what Cash had said.

  The pretty dark-haired one. That was what Cash had said.

  Well, there was only one pretty dark-haired one.

  Or only one that Shane had seen.

  He groaned. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. In his head he tried to reconstruct the scene. Two of the women had been blondes. The other two were brunettes. Both had long hair.

  But only one of them was pretty.

  The other girl was the one who'd driven away in the florist's van with the guy who'd showed up at the church.

  The other girl was…

  Milly?

  "The one who drove off in the florist's van?" he said faintly, groping, praying, even at the same time he knew his prayers had already been answered—and that the answer wasn't yes.

  The florist's van had been called something cutesy. Daisy's Flowers or Poppy's…

  He groaned again, remembering bright red letters and what they'd said. Poppy's Garden.

  "Milly," the girl in front of him agreed. "She borrowed my van."

  He fixed her with an accusing stare. "You're the florist?"

  "I'm the florist."

  Shane was furious. "Then why'd she take the damn van?"

  "Mike's buddies were going to decorate the car tonight. You know, the 'just married' crepe paper and tin cans stuff. They told him to leave it at the church. Milly came with me so we could do the flowers. She's been helping me in the shop. Then Mike came to pick her up, and I let them take my van for the nig
ht. I didn't need it. I only live a couple of blocks away—"

  "In the apartment over the book shop," he said heavily.

  "Exactly. I was going to walk home when I finished. But then you came along and—"

  Shane's teeth came together with a snap. He yanked his hat off and threw it across the room.

  He fixed Miss Georgia—Poppy!—Hamilton with a furious glare. "So why the hell didn't you say something, for God's sake? You let me do it!"

  She looked indignant. "Like it's my fault now?"

  He stalked a furious lap of the small room, then stopped to glower at her some more. "Of course it is! You could have stopped me!"

  "How? By protesting that I wasn't Milly? Would you have believed me?"

  Shane's good fist clenched and unclenched. He didn't know whether he would have or not.

  Probably … not.

  He would have thought she was lying to prevent him from doing what they both knew needed to be done. And the very thought made him furious all over again!

  He raked his fingers through his hair. He muttered under his breath. He said words that would have had his mother washing out his mouth with soap. He was pleased to see Miss Georgia—Poppy!—Hamilton's eyes widen. And then he was embarrassed at offending her.

  He clamped his mouth shut. "Sorry," he muttered. He spun around and stared out the window into the blizzard. His mind whirled as fast as the snow outside.

  As fast as his tires would spin if he were trying to get them out of the ditch. He wasn't going to be able to get them out of the ditch. They were stuck.

  His shoulders slumped. His head drooped. His eyes shut. "Hell."

  A tentative hand touched his back. He jumped.

  "You meant well," she said gently.

  He jerked away. "Uh-huh."

  "It was … really sort of noble of you."

  Shane snorted.

  "Even though it wasn't your problem." She edged around so she was in his line of vision, but he still refused to look at her. "It was Cash's responsibility, you know," she said. "Not yours. Cash should have done something."

  "He had to leave!"

  "He always has to leave," Poppy said impatiently. "Milly was sick of it."